The turf | 1 October 2011

Seeing me leaving the races early one day recently a friend inquired why. ‘Got to finish some painting,’ I replied. ‘Oh, really,’ he said in surprise. ‘Do you do watercolours or oils?’ I would have said, ‘No, walls,’ but he might then have imagined I did murals, so I had to explain that, surrounded as I am by plumbers installing new heating, bricklayers repairing our chimneys and electricians trying to trace the wiring in our 1797 abode, I  have been trying to save a few pennies by  doing the home decorating.

But economies, alas, don’t always live up to the theory. As I tried to prise the lid off a fiendishly secured paint tin last week, the top suddenly flew across the room and a spume of white undercoat splashed unerringly straight into the works of the expensive sanding machine being operated by the chap stripping our floorboards. When it ceased to work within the next few minutes, I learnt that these machines cost four figures and can only be repaired a hundred miles away in Southampton.